Modern computing platforms (like Personal Computers) may include support for multiple networking devices connecting to the network by single wireless card. Those networking devices may be a physical devices (for example main platform CPU running generic purpose applications and auxiliary embedded CPU that may run specific applications such as internet phone or manageabily). Those devices may be also virtual networking devices, such us Virtual Machines sharing single or multiple CPU-s with help of Virtualization Technology (VT) that may provide hardware support for running multiple Virtual Machines on the same computer.
One of the aspects of such multiple networking devices collocated in single computer is how they are presented on a network.
For corporate networks it may be desirable that each networking device be able to communicate with the networking infrastructure on a Media Access Control (MAC) layer (also known as L2). This allows the corporate network administrators to enforce certain security and traffic priority policies for different computers and users of these computers.
Current solutions are designed primarily for wired networks and suppose emulating a separate Network Card with its own MAC address for each Networking Machine for each networking device. In addition, such platform implements software or hardware emulation of appropriate network junction devices, such as a HUB, switch, bridge or gateway. From a network infrastructure perspective, it seems that network is connected to this Junction device, which is connected directly to each one of Networking Devices.
Although the present invention is not limited to any specific standards, for the Institute for Electronics and Electrical Engineers (IEEE) 802.11 standard networks, such a solution has a different network topology, where 802.11 Stations are connected to 802.11 Access Points. Currently, Access Points do not expect that there will be more than one computer behind the wireless link established by a station (or that there will be more than one MAC address that will be redirected by the AP to the station). The problem with such configuration is that since all Networking Devices share the same radio hardware, they may connect to the same AP.
Thus, a strong need exists for techniques to improve communication of multiple collocated networking devices over single wireless connection.
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